BROADCASTS.com

I call to you, Lord, come quickly to me; hear me when I call to you.\xa0May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies. (Psalm 141:1-4)

\xa0

This is a psalm that has often marked services of daily, common prayer throughout the history of the Christian church\u2014particularly the service of evening prayer.\xa0 Indeed, in the CRC\u2019s newest red hymnal (Lift Up Your Hearts), this is the psalm written in for the service of evening prayer (#381).

The psalm is really quite general in terms of what it asks God for.\xa0 Hear me.\xa0 Help me.\xa0 Guard my words.\xa0 Guard my heart.\xa0 Keep me from evil and from the evil of evildoers.\xa0 These last petitions resonate with the Lord\u2019s Prayer: \u201clead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.\u201d\xa0

While general, there is also something quite deliberate and attentive about this psalm.\xa0 It names our mouth, our hearts, our eyes, our actions.\xa0 It is a psalm that desires wisdom and growth away from the ways of evil and toward the ways of righteousness.\xa0 Perhaps most significantly, it recognizes that we cannot do this alone, but need God\u2019s help if we\u2019re going to turn away from evil and toward the good.\xa0

It\u2019s not enough for us to watch what we say: we also need God\u2019s accountability and help to watch over the door of our lips.\xa0 We also need God\u2019s help to check us against the ever-restless desires of our hearts for the \u201cdelicacies\u201d of any number of different \u201cappetites\u201d of relationship, body, status, or possession that may not quite be ours to enjoy.\xa0

Salvation is not our doing.\xa0 We know that.\xa0 But neither is living in grateful response to the salvation gift that we have been given.\xa0 We are equally as dependent on God for living Christianly as we were for becoming a Christian in the first place.\xa0 There\u2019s a whole lot of Christian life and living that comes after the point of our \u201csalvation,\u201d which for a good number of us may have been the day we were born into the covenantal Christian community as infants.\xa0 That means we need a whole lot of very boring, ordinary, general, everyday help from God.

Psalm 141, therefore, is a good prayer for all of us.\xa0 We need a good prayer for this general, everyday life use.\xa0 We need a Holy Spirit guard over our eyes and lips and hearts day-by-day against all the \u201clittle\u201d sins, \u201cwhite\u201d lies, and ordinary, glancing temptations so that our little eyes might be careful what they see, our little tongues what they say, and our little hearts what they covet.

May God indeed do this work daily.\xa0 May God keep us hungry for him and satisfied in him alone.\xa0 May he keep our words pure and in step with the fruit of the Spirit in all situations.\xa0 May he keep our eyes on the gifts he\u2019s given us and off the gifts he\u2019s given others.\xa0 \u201cLead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.\u201d

\xa0